The main props that I had to make, of worthy note, are the Ten Pound Lafitte hat and the mechanical troll witch teeth stick. Terrance will recite the poem while, the beautiful Trixie wear’s the frog hat and utilizes the troll teeth to good effect. Perhaps, we shall see you there : )

This year, it was held at the Inn at the Crossroads. This site is easier to get to and had plenty of free parking. Having the convention in a large, accommodating,  luxury hotel was a real treat.

On Friday evening, I ran a Call of Cthulhu game for a 4 hour stint. Then we did some shopping with the Clockwork Bazaar merchants.  Saturday was more shopping, doing the art show, and schmoozing. In the afternoon,  Manuela ran a Yoga session and then a jewelry making workshop for the attendees.  Later that evening, we participated in the variety show. Manuela performed two dance numbers and helped me do the last, for awhile anyway, performance of the Tail of the Dorset Duckling along with Terrance and Grimpen at the controls.

A very short but very cool clip of Ameena in Godzilla drag at the variety show at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBcGft28SPU

A steampunk fashion show followed and then a costume contest after that. Then off to an invitation party for the performers which, likely as not, was the coolest party I will ever attend. We finally wrapped the evening up with an independent stop motion film of E.A. Poe’s Annabelle Lee at a midnight showing. The next day, we hung around some more, marveling at the gaming tables and all the miniatures, and then bought more books from C.J. Henderson, one of our favorite authors.

A full and rewarding weekend, indeed. The TempleCon folks wrote me a few days later to tell me people were raving about my Call of Cthulhu session and asked if I would do another in 2011. Well then, that is what I call booking in advance. We are looking forward to TempleCon 2011. Support your local convention!

Some general notations:

The rod had to be customized to Grimpen’s anatomy.

The hinge for the bottom jaw was way too small so I enlarged it with a piece of aluminum from my scrap box. The aluminum piece was originally one of those struts that snaps onto a rail and a bunch of them in a row gives you a place to put a shelf. Application of a hacksaw and files turned the strut into a longer, wider, lightweight jaw which was bolted to the hinge itself.

The springs are from those cheapo desks  lamps. You know , the ones that extend and can be tightened so the lamp can be placed anywhere. Horse hockey!! They don’t work worth a damn but there are 6-8 springs on some of them!

After having  seen a few variations of mouth works,  I decided on my own version after a bit of  experimentation. My first forays were with dowel rods which I found were not the way to go for me.  The wood was too soft, split easily and did not stand up to experimentation whatsoever. I also learned that attaching flat surfaces to rounded forms is simply making things harder than they need to be. Note in the pictures the beat up hinge that is attached to the rod.  This is the effect of trying to put a flat surface on a round one.

The wood is a left over scrap from a threshold project I did on the house.   It is a piece of red oak, measuring roughly 3/4 of an inch on each side and cut to 18 inches long. The piece I cut off was again cut to a length of about 6  inches and placed in a vice.  I rounded the top with a  chisel and judicial hand pressure. I want it round and smooth here so the spring can ride smoothly over this area.

Working with red oak is really nice. You can drill it repetitively and not worry about splitting. It responds to metal working tools like rasps and files admirably and generally does not cost all that much more than much less desirable woods.

Through the pictures you will note small holes drilled all over. These were holes for the eye screws for the spring as I tested various placements for optimum tension of the spring and still fit within the puppet. Do this with a softer wood and soon you will have nothing but splinters.

In the end, I found that the optimum spring location for this particular puppet had the spring starting at the bottom jaw hinge, traveling up and over the top mouth support and then back down to the hinge itself.  There is no right or wrong way. Just ways that work better than others.

The rod was secured, internally, with a rope that passes through Grimpen’s lower jaw. This keeps the rod where it needs to be to work best and makes it removable within a few knots.

Onward with the pictures!

The initial evaluation showed the fossilized skull and neck bones of a primitive batrachian specie. The rest of the specimen was believed to be intact but there was a fair amount of obscuring matrix that needed to be removed.  Cleaning began and eventually the bulk of the specimen began to reveal itself.  A weak solution of acetic acid was applied to help remove the more difficult limestone deposits encasing the smaller bones of the right wrist when a large flake cracked and lifted off. A dark staining of the stone was noted and cleaning proceeded to eventually reveal an elongated fifth metacarpal bordering the dark edge. The dark stain was in fact a wing membrane.  The world’s first specimen of a winged amphibian had been discovered!

As time goes on, more unusual creatures from the earths past are coming to light. This may be the first of a very strange group of prehistoric creatures that established paleontology is likely to have a bit of trouble categorizing.

January 15-17 Arisia 2010 Cambridge, Ma……art show

January 29-30 Birka Market, SCA, Manchester NH……fencing

February 5-7 Templecon, Warwick, RI………..art show, puppet performance, CoC game

February 12-14 Boskone 47, Boston, MA………art show

February 26, Odditoruium, Canbridge, MA……..puppet performance.

The February 26th date at the Odditorium show will be the debut of my new poem called Ten Pound Lafitte.  It’s a rousing story about a chef and an unwilling frog. Terrance and Grimpen will be doing the performance.

Hope to see y’all about!

I got hold of a roll of single unprimed duck, 100 yards long and 6 foot wide for a reasonable price and that should be enough for roughly 50 back drops.  What will drop first,  the backdrops or myself is a subject for debate. My money is on me going first.

The first hurdle was how to stretch a 7 x 6 foot canvas.  Canvas stretchers of that size are prohibitive, so I opted for 2 decently knot free pieces of pine, dimensions  8′x6″x”1.  I ripped them in half  lengthwise on the saw, sanded them and then after a flurry of measuring and squaring lines on the wall, screwed them directly into the horsehair plaster walls with long drywall screws. The only space in the entire house where this beast could have went was 6 foot 2 inches wide area between two windows in the living room. What a break! When I stepped back to look, I nearly tripped over my jaw. God Almighty, that is huge area. When the dancing mistress came home and saw the frame on the wall, her response was similar with a bit of sailor slang tossed in.

Stretching was much easier than anticipated. I used the basic canvas to stretcher rotational attachment method and everything went along nicely. Priming with gesso took about 1.5 hours with a six inch brush in one hand and a spray bottle of water in the other while balanced on the ladder. I then had to wait till night time to transfer the drawing via projector.

The palette, as you can see below, was several colors of whatever I found in the cellar from old house painting projects. Some of that stuff is near 20 years old but still working. Lots of wet paper towels,  a couple of plastic drop clothes, a few cheapo aluminum pans and we were off!  Some large cheap brushes were used to put the paint on and the painting went fast. I did three sessions for a total of about 17 hours. I am pretty impressed by the amount of pigment in house paint. I used a lot less paint than I thought I would or should have.

So now the piece is done. What is left now is to figure a way to get it off the wall and then trim the sides to be parallel and square respectively. After that,  I have to bind the edges and figure out a way for it to hang on and straight down from the rack we bought just for that purpose.  More on that later.

Illuxcon was Intimidating. The level of the artwork was phenomenal. There were masters there in their respective fields and some fellas I have not met but all the work was way above the bar. Talk about cream of the crop. No, Pat Wilshire is not paying me to write this.

Illuxcon was Intimate. It is such a small convention you cannot help but eventually meet everyone there. There were 55 artists with a limited amount of guests that can attend. I got to meet a long time influence, Ian Miller.  I was a little leary at first as the last famous British artist I met was total pratt however Ian was sweetheart of guy with some rather introspective questions that I suspect were disguised silly at the time but made me think later on. I also got to meet a slew of other artists and a couple of absolutely incredible sculptors. And of course the best part was saying hello to old friends and just yacking.

Check these sculptors out!

Jordu Schell at http://schellstudio.com/

Thomas Kuebler at http://www.tskuebler.com/

And lastly Illuxcon is Ingenious. Quite a concept to have a convention for artists for the artists. Kudos to Pat Wilshire and his amazing staff for making for an incredible four days for me. There were so many venues, receptions, talks and demonstrations by people who know their craft that it was hard for me to stay at my table. I was falling down tired at the end of each day but eager to get back again in the morning. I hope to return next year but we shall see what the new year brings.

Other Illuxcon stuff:  John Picacio’s , a fabulous artist from Texas (bonus points for that alone ) photostream of the event. http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnpicacio/sets/72157622693706277/